Survé fails in gripe about story

Independent Media and its executive chairman, Dr Iqbal Survé, have lost a complaint against the Sunday Times for reporting that an editor in their group was fired for a story about Brian Molefe being parachuted into parliament.

Independent and Survé insisted that Sunday Independent editor Wally Mbhele resigned. Senior Independent staff who spoke to the Sunday Times said he was fired after Survé received complaints about the story. They said Survé had demanded that Mbhele apologise to Molefe, but Mbhele had refused.

Independent — which launched its own ombudsman’s office earlier this year — complained to the Press Council’s ombudsman, Johan Retief, about our story, published on May 14 under the headline “Survé ‘canned editor over Molefe article’ ”. Retief dismissed the complaint. “I am satisfied that the journalists — from start to finish, and consistently — referred to sources, either directly or indirectly, and not once presented the source information as fact. Well done to them. Moreover, even the headline put the statement in inverted commas, indicating a source,” Retief said.

“While I cannot vouch for the veracity of the notion that Mbhele did not resign from Independent Media, but that he was in fact fired, the only reasonable conclusion I am left with is that Sunday Times was justified to believe that its information was essentially true at the time of publication.”

Retief also dismissed complaints that we omitted material information, didn’t publish Independent’s full response, and that our headlines and caption were not supported. Independent has sought leave to appeal.

Retief has also dismissed a complaint by Tuwani Mulaudzi, who was mentioned in “Hlophe showed bias for lawyer, appeal judge finds”, published on June 11. Our report was based on a Supreme Court of Appeal judgment. Retief found our report justified. Mulaudzi has sought leave to appeal.